The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) (16 page)

Joe was still staring at him.

"What?" Ryan barked at him, still seething.

"You have that look."

He could have said, "what look?" but he didn't bother. Bloodhound Knight, they used to call him back when he was in the homicide department. When he got like this he felt like he was in the zone, every clue laid out before him, every step clear.

Like this was the job he was meant to do, he thought. But this was the last time he'd ever be a cop. He wondered if he would ever get away from the sense of responsibility for others. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was protecting Camilla.

He turned to Joe. "You want me to show you how to run a big case?"

Joe lit up. He'd only asked Ryan about the big cases a dozen times since he joined the department last fall, but there hadn't been anything big to work on in Pajaro Bay. Until now.

"Absolutely, Sir. I'd love to."

"Okay." He tossed his notebook on Joe's desk. "We've got one. Read me the info off the top page."

"Can't I even get a cup of java first?"

One glare from Ryan and Joe sat up straight in his chair, at attention. "Ready, Captain."

Ryan wrote across the top of the board: Dennis H_____. "We're hunting a fugitive. He's wanted for payroll embezzlement."

"Oh." Joe smiled. "Yeah, she is cute."

"He's also going to be wanted for attempted murder, as soon as I can prove it. She's in the clinic, recovering from an accidental gas leak at her cottage. So's her little boy."

"Oh." The smile was gone. "Are they okay?"

"For now. And we're going to keep them okay. Pay attention. This guy's clever— nobody's put the pieces together."

"Until now."

"Until now. Here we go."

Sacramento, Fresno, then Salinas, then San Jose. The marker squeaked as he wrote the places across the top of the board. "This is what we're starting with. Oliver said he'd lived all these places. I'm going to presume he was telling the truth when he said that's the order they traveled in."

"When did he live in L.A.?"

Ryan stopped, pen poised over the board. "He didn't mention L.A."

"He said my tamales smelled like Olvera Street last night. That's not something he'd know if he'd never been to El Pueblo. Trust me on this one."

"Okay. We'll put L.A. off to the side since we don't know where it fits into the pattern. There may be others, too. We don't know how many places Dennis dragged the kid over the years."

They both looked at the board.

"Now what?" Joe asked.

"Look at the next page of notes. We know he was in Sacramento at a particular time."

Joe turned the page.

"Read me the info."

Joe read and Ryan wrote: Joyce Ashford-Henning. Deceased March 9th. Two years ago. Ryan added the contact info for Paul Graham at Sacramento Homicide below.

"So, we've got some info on Sacramento. He was there with his wife and kid two years ago. His wife died in a car accident. He was using the name Henning. Now, turn the page."

They repeated the process under San Jose: Camilla Stewart, arrested March 23rd. This year. Then he listed the crimes: Cordova Computing Payroll, $1.2 million. Savings and checking accounts of Camilla Stewart. Camilla. She was so innocent. Even now she had no idea how much danger she was in. He wanted to rush back to her bedside at the hospital. Seeing her and Oliver last night, choking, helpless, it had shaken him. He had seen a lot of crime victims over the years, but this was different. He needed to protect them. Not only that, he needed her. Needed to see her smile. Needed to feel the touch of her small hand.

He took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. He was getting involved, and that was dangerous to her. He had to keep his distance. He had to be on guard at all times, or he couldn't keep her safe. How could he be close to her to protect her, but be unmoved by her, be untouched by her presence? He had to find a way.

But first, he had to do figure out what Dennis's next move would be. This was how to protect her and Oliver now.

Joe was still watching him warily.

"These are our parameters," he told Joe.

"For what?"

"Look at the board."

On the left was Sacramento, with Oliver's mother's death two years ago. On the right, Camilla's arrest and Dennis's disappearance, last month.

"They left Sacramento some time after Oliver's mother died. He was calling himself Dennis Henning then. That might be his real name —or just another lie. But we know he was there two years ago."

"I get it," Joe said. "He was last in San Jose a few weeks ago. That's when Dennis, then using the name Hutchins, disappeared. Everything else has to fit between those two dates." Joe sat back in the chair. "So how do we figure it out?"

"This is where we start digging."

"Where do we start? CODIS?"

Ryan shook his head.

"Why not?"

"We would first need to find a sample of Dennis's DNA. Then we'd have to submit it and see if there are any other crimes where DNA was collected that matches ours."

"I see. Because there wasn't any violent crime they might not have any crime scene to collect DNA from."

Ryan let the part about violence pass, and just nodded.

"What about his son? We could get his DNA and do a partial-match search."

Ryan paused. "Tempting, but I'm not sure we can get an okay for that. Relative matching is usually used for missing persons, or if the relative is also a criminal already in the database."

"Well, Dennis is missing, isn't he?"

Ryan pictured himself trying to make that argument to Camilla. Her blistering response when he asked to swab her little boy's cheek so they could nab his father would not be pretty. "Let's let that go for the moment. We may not have to approach Camilla yet."

"You'd think she'd want to catch the creep."

"It's not that. She's not on Dennis's side. I'm sure. She's just not exactly on my side, either."

"Not speaking to you, huh?"

"For someone who got ripped off by Dennis Hutchins, she's pretty adamant that he wouldn't hurt her or the boy."

"Denial."

He didn't want to tell Joe about his feelings for Camilla—feelings he couldn't even explain to himself. "For now, let's go back to the basics. We need to figure out his M.O."

"That's easy. He robs payrolls from large companies."

Ryan nodded. "I've got to call the fire inspector and get an official report on the accident at Camilla's. Do a quick database search and see how many similar crimes have been committed in those cities in the last couple of years."

The inspector was out, so Ryan left a message. When he got off the phone, Joe was shaking his head at the computer.

"Nada. I've tried every variation I can think of, but there's really nothing like the Cordova Computing payroll in those cities during that time."

Ryan sat down in his chair, then got right back up. "We're looking for the wrong thing." He went over to the board again. "We're not seeing it. It's here somewhere."

"You're the expert, Ryan. I trust your gut quicker than most men's hard evidence."

"Let's work this through. He's been moving around a lot. Taking his kid with him. Not being a high-profile enough criminal to get a real heavy duty manhunt after him. You steal too many payrolls from major corporations and you'll be caught. It's not a low-profile offense. So let's assume he hasn't been doing that. Let's go at this a different way. We're assuming he's stealing payrolls from large companies because he stole from Cordova Computing. But what if his main crime isn't the robbing of the payroll, but the robbing of Camilla, and the payroll was just a bonus? He not only took the payroll, he cleaned out all her accounts when he skipped town. He charmed her. She thought they were getting married. Then she found he'd skipped with all her money. What does that sound like?"

"A confidence man. " Then Joe whistled softly. "A gigolo."

A gigolo. The word hit Ryan in the gut, hard. They had been engaged. She had trusted the man. He had touched her, been with her.

"Um, Ryan?"

Joe was looking down at Ryan's hands. Ryan saw that he'd clenched the marker so tightly that the ink had left a smear of red all over his palms.

He wiped his hands on a paper towel and came back. He hoped the blood-red on his hands was not a sign.

"Where were we?"

"Dennis is a gigolo."

Ryan clenched his jaw. "Right."

"He charms women and rips them off?"

Ryan nodded. Camilla was so innocent, she'd never encountered a man like Dennis before. It wasn't her fault. "Okay," he said, trying to keep this businesslike and not get wound up with thoughts of ripping Dennis to pieces. "Let's narrow it down by city."

He looked at the board. "Let's start with Salinas."

"Why Salinas?"

"You ask a lot of questions."

"I'm trying to learn."

"Right. Sorry." Ryan tried to stop leaping from one conclusion to the next without thinking. He was here to teach Joe so he could do this job safely and effectively. So he'd learn how to do this without Ryan around. He had to slow down. "We start with Salinas because it has the smallest population of these cities."

"Of course."

"So it's our best shot at finding a particular crime. What are we looking for?" He waited, trying not to be impatient, while Joe mulled it over.

"Has he left his kid with other women?"

"No. Camilla seems pretty sure this is the first time he's done that."

"So we're looking for other women who've been ripped off, maybe after he promised to marry them or something like that."

"Right. He claims he loves them and then cleans out their bank account, that kind of thing. So what's the code, Joe?"

"487. Grand Theft," Joe said immediately.

"Right. We are looking for similar cases in Salinas."

"That could be a large number."

Ryan's mind was leaping ahead, but he tried to remember that being a teacher was important. "How do we narrow it down to a manageable number, Joe?"

"His description?"

"Good." He wrote on the board: WM 5'10", late 30s, clean cut, Br/Br. "Camilla never had a picture of him. That's a typical con artist trait, by the way. Somehow they never get into a picture. What else?"

Joe looked at the board. "The time frame."

"Exactly. It had to take place between Joyce Henning's death and Camilla's arrest. Not only that, we have to allow for him to spend some time in each of these places. He was in at least one other city before he went to Salinas. He arrived in San Jose at least three months ago."

All that info went on the board. It was beginning to look like a sea of red notes.

Ryan set down the marker. "I'm going to go get you that coffee. While I'm gone, call Salinas PD. Ask for Rojas in Records. See if you can get a hit on anything matching the M.O. we've got so far. Give her time. It might take a while."

By the time Ryan got back from Santos' Market with two cups of coffee and a couple of sopaipillas, Joe was ready with the info.

"Rojas says hi. She said some really nice things about you."

Ryan brushed that off with a wave of his hand. Joe looked really excited about something, though, so Ryan prompted, "and?"

"You're not going to believe this. Renee Rojas is a former beach volleyball player."

Ryan knew Joe was really into beach volleyball, so he just raised an eyebrow.

"No, it's relevant," Joe said. "She remembered the case. Melissa Everette claimed a man cleaned out her bank account. This was about a year ago. The guy matches the description. And get this—the guy's name was Dennis Hedrick."

"Wow. I guess he really likes those H's." Ryan put down the coffee and wrote on the board: Hedrick went under Salinas. "Okay, we've got Henning in Sacramento, Hutchins in San Jose, and Hedrick in Salinas. Want to bet whoever he ripped off in Fresno and L.A. knew him as Dennis H, too?" This was going to be easy. "Now, I want you to get me Melissa Everette's phone number. I want to talk to that woman today."

Ryan went to his desk and started to dial. "I'm calling the county office to run all this by the sheriff. We are definitely on to something. Once I talk to Ms. Everette, we'll be close to catching that SOB."

"Wait a minute, Ryan."

Ryan stopped with the phone in hand. "What?"

"Don't call the sheriff yet. I told you deputy Rojas played volleyball. There's more."

Ryan put the phone down. "Such as?"

"You can't call Melissa Everette."

"Why not?"

"You don't recognize the name?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Remember the last Olympics? Melissa Everette was the beach volleyball coach for one of the teams. She was way hot."

"Yeah, Joe, I know you have a thing for the sport."

Joe grinned. "Amazing athletes. And they wear really nice outfits."

"Uh huh. So what? You want to talk to her yourself because you're a fan?"

"I can't talk to her—neither can you. She's dead."

Ryan sat down in his desk chair. The creak of the springs sounded like the hinges on Camilla's front door. He felt a chill wash over him. "Please don't tell me her gas tank exploded."

"I don't think so. I don't remember the details, but it was some sort of freak accident."

"A freak accident," Ryan repeated dumbly. He stared out the window at Calle Principal. "A freak accident," he repeated.

"I'll look it up."

It didn't take long. Soon Joe was reading him the report: Melissa Everette, 27-year-old Olympic medalist, fell while hiking in the Pinnacles. The volleyball coach had gone hiking early Tuesday morning and was found late that afternoon. She had apparently slipped off a path and fallen 100 feet to her death.

"Right," Ryan said. "A trained athlete fell off a hiking path on a clear day in the middle of the summer? And nobody questioned it?"

"Why would they?" Joe asked. He kept skimming the report, hitting the highlights: She had told friends she was going hiking. She did it all the time. Had a cell phone, safety equipment, etc. When she didn't come back a friend called for a search and they found her. No signs of foul play.

"Of course not. This guy is incredible."